Surely, in this day and age, it should be unlawful to have the name 'Robert Lee'?

Yep, different symbols mean different things to different people.

In many people's eyes that flag also represents the independence of the south. Before the rise of minority identity politics you had it displayed a lot....Dukes of Hazard was on the BBC for example.

It also represents a union that implemented slavery and fought to continue it.

Still, if you are in the south and want to take pride in the being from there.....then there are a lack of historical symbols to take up.

That is outrageous racist language.

The question of how much these status celebrate slavery, racism etc is almost beside the point.
The point, as has been suggested numerous times already, is once you start this kind of revisionist judgemental dismantling of history, where does it all end? It is a flawed mentality that is born from ignorance. No one with a brain gives a damn about a statue. What matters is how people behave today. This requires a whole lot of education and moral guidance for all cultures involved, not stupid tokenisms which encourage unrest. I don't care if a load of racists put up the status during times of segregation, I'm more concerned that a bunch of morons pulled them down in 2017. Those idiots are our future.

This word, 'colour' being used to describe non white people is a bit weird. White people are coloured too. I'm not getting at Ray for using it but making a wider point because it's something I'm noticing more and more.

Technically black or white aren't actually colours but in reality it's extremely unlikely that a white or black person has ever been born that would fit the description.

So we are all coloured. Non caucasian is probably better.

Edited by Stirlingsays (23 Aug 2017 3.51pm)

As has been explained previously to the point of exhaustion, the statue of Lee was not simply being removed, it was being moved to a location that the current town council - and their constituents - thought would be more appropriate than a giant stone plinth atop the most prominent location in the entire town.

Claiming that it's destroying the south's heritage, when to anyone of colour - i.e. the majority of residents of Charlottesville - it represents some of the darkest behaviours demonstrable by the human race is to be so callous as to make it impossible to believe that it's being done with anything other than malice.

I agree that simply disposing of such things (or smashing them with a hammer) is not the right answer. We need reminders of such horrors which is why much of Auschwitz is preserved and holocaust museums exist in many cities around the world. But leaving them in a place of honour and prominence is not necessary in order to preserve the history. And note I said "history", not "heritage", because those two words are not interchangeable in this case. In fact, given its definition, "heritage" actually becomes quite sinister.